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In fact, the Mail last crossed paths with Mike a few weeks ago, standing in a muddy field at commemorations in Oppy - a small village in northern France, where almost 300 Hull soldiers died on May 3, 1917.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: The Hull Pals' trench whistle given to Mike Fuller

"You don't just lose a trench whistle," says Mike. "It was attached to you using a lanyard. So the chances are that I'm holding something that was blown by a Hull soldier who died that day.

"To say I'm humbled to have been given this is an understatement."

BEACON OF HOPE: Mike Fuller with the Freedom Flame

Few posed pictures exist of Mike on former battlefields, or with veterans. He's usually the one taking the photographs, or more likely, assisting a frail veteran battling age to pay homage to fallen friends.

"I don't like my picture being taken," he says, with an endearing frankness.

It's this sincerity that has brought him into the centre of Hull's veterans' community - no mean feat for a man who hasn't completed a single day's service in the Armed Forces.

He's fuelled by a burning desire to do good in an unstable world.

Mike is perhaps most closely aligned to Hull's D-Day veterans. The heroes, now in their 90s, who stormed the beaches of Normandy, to liberate France during the Second World War.

It's been a gradual process. An indoctrination, almost, fuelled by a back problem that put paid to his 30-year dentistry career that, to quote Mike, "freed him up" for other endeavours.

"I had physio on my lower back," he says. "That resulted in my left hand becoming completely numb. The fingertips on my right hand are numb. I knew immediately I was no longer safe to practice. It would have been unethical to continue."

ROYAL APPROVAL: Mike Fuller took this snap of D-Day veterans John Ainsworth, left, and Ray Lord meeting Prince Charles during a trip to Normandy in 2014 (Image: Mike Fuller)

That was December 2010.

Five years earlier, his friend Paul Bryan, the former head of Hymers Junior School, west Hull, had sowed the seeds for what would become a fascination with military history and a yearning to help the city's veterans in their twilight years.

"My two kids, Ewan, and Aine, both attended the school," he says. "Paul was running trips to Normandy for the kids. Parents soon wanted to go on them too. One year, there was a spare place and I went along.

"Standing in Ranville War Cemetery, not far from Pegasus Bridge, I got it. Some people go their whole lives without getting it. But I got it. I came back from that trip with my mind well and truly blown."

Later, Paul and Mike were to save a trip, in danger of collapsing, back to the beaches by the Normandy Veterans' Association.

Every year, Mike now chaperones D-Day veterans on their visits to Normandy.

"The first one we did, we said to the veterans, 'Tell us your story. We'll then take you to the spot where you fought'. It means a lot to them."

He is also vice chairman of the Freedom Flame committee. First lit in Wageningen in Holland in 1948, the flame was presented to the people of Hull three years ago.

Since then, it has continued to burn, in lamps, in Mike's home, and is regularly paraded at key events involving the area's veterans.

MEMORIES: John Ainsworth, left, and Ray Lord pictured on Sword beach in Normandy

Over the past few years, Mike has grown close to many of East Yorkshire's best-loved veterans, including John Ainsworth and Ray Lord.

He's discovered a lot about life from these gentlemen.

"There's an almost anti-war sentiment about these chaps," he says. "They're certainly not pacifists. But they've experienced war properly, and they know the horrors that result.

"They know the true cost of freedom."

Mike says he has no faith. Religious, that is.

"But I try to make the world a better place in random, small ways," he says. "My children, who have both flown the nest, have grown up knowing that they must always do the right thing in life, even if that is harmful to themselves.

"To me, if you can look back at the end of your days and say, 'I've put a smile on someone's face every day', you'd have led a good life. It doesn't have to be a big gesture. Just small, random acts of kindness will do fine."

One's of Mike's favourite quotes is etched on a plaque he keeps in his kitchen.

In 1948, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery said: "Let us be strong in the resolve to stand firmly for freedom and justice in an unsettled world."

We're both thinking the same thing, after the atrocity in Manchester left 22 people dead and the recent terror attack in London.

"Good advice," sums up Mike.

What the veterans say about Mike

Ray Lord, 92, says: "Mike is the best friend I have ever had. If I ever had another son, I'd have wanted him to be like Mike.

"He has done a hell of a lot for the Normandy veterans.

"He has had lots of sleepless nights and travelled many miles for us. I cannot praise him enough."

John Ainsworth, 96, says: "I can only describe Mike as an amazing man. He has done so much to assist Normandy veterans over the years.

"I'm aware of his health problems, and they're serious, but he's put that to one side to help us. He organises parades at the cenotaph, and assists us on trips all over the place. We're very grateful.

"Mike has a lovely wife in Ursula. She's a great, calm lass, but I don't know how she puts up with him!"

Ernie Lornie, who served with the Merchant Navy, is the welfare officer for Hull's Normandy veterans.

"Mike is the man you go to if you need anything doing. If he doesn't know the answer to something, he will away and find the answer."